


tum somnum

by apolliades



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Episode: s01e09 The C the C the Open C, Intimacy, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 04:16:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16569458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apolliades/pseuds/apolliades
Summary: The cot is too narrow for two grown men, presses them together so that even clothed, their edges blur.





	tum somnum

“Let me look at this.”

Henry nudges his sleeve up further so the eye can peek out and gaze up at him. It would wince and squint against the candle’s flickering light were it real.

He must have seen it a hundred times before, but perhaps not so closely, or with so much thought or intent.

John feels the brush of his fingertip as keenly as he did the needle. It starts a shiver that crosses every inch of his skin. Still can’t believe it sometimes, what a blessing it is, being touched by him.

With light touch he follows gently each eyelash, the lower lid underneath, but curves around the iris. As if it were real, and he might hurt it.

“This one looks out,” he says, finger on the bow of the outer corner. Moving to hover over the centre, “And this one up.”

To look into his face he lets his head loll back against John’s shoulder. His hair smells of salt, tickles John’s nose.

The cot is too narrow for two grown men, presses them together so that even clothed, their edges blur.

Henry looks at him for a moment, and when he doesn’t say anything, smiles and takes his gaze back to the tattoo.

“How was it made?”

“Ink and a needle. Much the same way as you make marks with a pen on a page.”

His turn to trace the lashes now, sleeve rolled up, the lines framed on either side by handwriting childishly formed into stilted best-guess Latin, shaky misshapen Greek, a note about breakfast, whose coffee is this? fragments of poetry, the C, the C, I love the sea.

“Did it hurt?”

“A little.”

“Does it still?”

“Not at all.”

He makes a soft and thoughtful noise. Low enough to be felt in his John’s body too, where they meet. He places his right hand just inside the open collar of Henry’s shirt. There’s a little too little flesh covering his ribs, but his heartbeat beneath is steady and slow. His chest expands into a sigh.

“Are you tired?”

Henry’s hand finds its way along John’s arm till their palms meet; his fingers cradle his, their thumbs overlap. It had been Henry who had taken his hand first. Very first. And still, often, he feels the same sense of wonder when they come together. Blessing enough to be near him, to be his friend, to share his company - let alone to touch him, hold him, lie alongside him, whisper his love aloud and above all, more than he would have ever dared hope, to have it returned.

“Yes.”

His head should never have been allowed to touch a bed so rough and cold as the broken Arctic ground. Lay him more gently now on the blankets in the bow. It feels wrong to take his hands away; they should stay there to cushion him always.

“John.”

His breath is warm and close, a mist across his neck. The strength of his grip belies the weariness of his form. Hold on, Henry. He shifts in John’s arms and the wooden edge of the cot digs in against his side; he doesn’t mind. He can feel the strong delicate curve of Henry’s spine beneath his shirt. His smile and the scratch of his whiskers that accompany the kisses to his shoulder.

His voice so close by his ear it could be inside his head. The roar of the sea inside a shell.

“Can we sleep?”

**Author's Note:**

> bridgens & peglar made a hole in me which i don't know how i will ever fill!


End file.
